The preface outlines the emotional core of the play. Shanley posits that we live in “a culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgment and of verdict” surrounding a core of total ignorance and doubt (vii). Doubt, insists Shanely, is an interesting dramatic moment that express itself when one is “on the verge of growth” (viii). He wrote Doubt to analyze that moment, and also to explore his own childhood experiences in Catholic school in the 1960s, a time when “the whole world seemed to be going through some kind of vast puberty” (viii). In Shanley’s view, the faith of students and religious leaders there was a “shared dream” (ix), adherence to which made them “terribly vulnerable” (ix). As outside forces sought to dismantle their faith and way of life, its guardians “sacrificed actual good for perceived virtue” (ix).

This scene introduces Father Flynn, a priest in his late thirties, described as working-class and from the Northeast. He gives a sermon throughout the short scene. The opening line of the play is his question, “What do you do when you’re not sure?” (5), and the sermon analyzes this question through a short parable that presents no answer or resolution.